Ludacris has been interviewed so many times, it’s ludicrous.
So with his fourth album, “Red Light District,” debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard chart this week, we decided to ask some around-the-way folks what they want to know about the superstar rapper with the quicksilver tongue.
AP: What’s up Luda. Sunny, a radio DJ on Hot 97 in New York City, had the following question: We’ve seen various artists begin as rappers, then later in their career switch to singing, like Andre 3000 and Queen Latifah. Are you next?
Ludacris: I like to call it ‘ghetto harmonizing.’ On the new album, there’s a song called, “Blue Berry Yum Yum.” But it’s nothing in the realm of any of those people just named that are singing on their albums. It’s almost like I’m rapping and singing at the same time. I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s weird.
AP: There was a time in hip-hop when singing was considered wack. When did it become OK for MCs to sing?
Ludacris: When they’ve already proven they can rap ... like an Andre 3000. He’s the perfect example. He rapped for five or six straight albums. So when you try to reinvent yourself and be creative and go to that next album, you can’t blame him for [singing] because what more can you rap about. So taking it a step further, trying to harmonize or even sing, and people like it? He’s captured a whole new audience. So I think it’s cool. As long as you stay true to yourself.
AP: Have you ever serenaded a girl with a song?
Ludacris: I really can’t say that I have. But maybe soon to come, who knows. Instead of serenading with singing, I’d probably rap to a girl. My first song was, ‘I’m cool I’m bad I might be ten / But I can’t survive without my girlfriend.’ I’ve done some romantic things in my time. I hired somebody to put rose petals at [a girl’s] feet for a day on her birthday.
AP: Wow! That’s nice. Well, since we’re talking about women, 29-year-old Courtney Patterson from Baltimore wants to know if you’d date a girl who had pimples and other physical imperfections, but a really big butt.
Ludacris: I have. I try not to judge. I let God judge. But I definitely love girls with beautiful feet. I have a foot fetish. Messed up feet man, sometimes she can trick me and just wear boots and not even show her feet. But when I see the feet, it’s a wrap. And I don’t like girls with hairy legs. I kind of like it to be nice and smooth. A little hair never hurt anybody. But when it gets a little too much, that’s when it’s not good anymore.
AP: I know the ladies love Ludacris. Even girls like 29-year-old Evelyn Leduc from New York, who wants to know the chances of a skinny white girl like her with small breasts and no butt getting into one of your videos?
Ludacris: It’s extremely possible. There have been some. She just probably didn’t see them. But I don’t discriminate and I do make a conscious effort to pick some of the girls that are in my videos. It’s just about the concept of the song and how I think they will fit into the whole realm of what’s going on. My next video, I’m going to have a lot of overweight beautiful women in it. So it’s only a matter of time before I just go ahead and get a bunch of skinny, no butt and breasts, white girls in the video.
AP: That would be am interesting way to create diversity and address the obesity problem in America. Would you run for public office?
Ludacris: I can’t see myself doing that right now. But I would never say never. I look at myself as a leader, so obviously I would do that. Try to make some changes.
AP: Kevin Ryals, a 24-year-old from the Bronx, wants to know: If you ruled the world, what would you do?
Ludacris: The first thing I’d do is get Bush out of the presidency and bring Bill Clinton back. Besides that, I would deal with the debt. I would pay off the deficit. And of course I would deal with a lot of homeless issues, insurance issues for senior citizens. I would deal with the AIDS issue. I would just try to change what we feel is wrong today. There’s no limit to that.
AP: Zayda Rivera, a 24-year-old writer and assistant editor with The Ave magazine, wants to know how your trip to Africa changed your perspective on life in the United States.
Ludacris: It just makes me really value everything that I have because there are a lot of unfortunate people out there — way more than people here. So it make me value life a lot more.
AP: What’s the most memorable thing you saw in Africa?
Ludacris: Their projects compared to ours. It looked like a damn tent set up in the middle of a dirt road no bigger than my arm’s reach. Thousands of them, in Soweto. I was there for a week, last year December. They were singing ‘Stand Up.’ It was amazing enough that I went to a whole other continent, 16 hours away and they’re singing my song. Crazy.
AP: Zayda also wants to know if this trip helped motivate your work with the Ludacris Foundation?
Ludacris: The motivation comes from how you feel good when you do good. It’s that feeling and knowing that what you do is the right thing. Like when somebody gave you something when you were a kid, and how good you felt. Knowing that I can do that and make people feel that way, that’s the motivation.
AP: It’s good to feel like a kid every now and then. One 14-year-old kid from Brooklyn named Malik Turner wants to know what you’re working on next.
Ludacris: After this album is the fifth album. It’ll probably be called “Release Therapy” because it’ll be my last album in my deal. Two movies coming up, one John Singleton produced called “Hustle and Flow,” a southern hood classic about a pimp trying to get into the music game. It sounds crazy, but it’s gonna be a classic film. And there’s a movie called “Crash” I did with Sandra Bullock, Brendan Frazier, Loretta Devine and Don Cheadle. Both movies are supposed to be coming out next year around summer time.